Welcome to the Walter Burley
Griffin Society of America web site. Our mission is to preserve
the legacy of architects Walter Burley Griffin and Marion
Mahony Griffin and the Prairie School of Architecture.

Here are important details for the sixteenth annual meeting of the Walter Burley
Griffin Society of America, to be held in Madison, Wisconsin, on Saturday, 20
June:

MEETING: The meeting will begin promptly at 9:00 AM on Saturday morning
in the main auditorium of Frank Lloyd Wright’s First Unitarian Meeting
House, located at 900 University Bay Drive in Shorewood Hills. The building
will be open at 8:00 and we urge everyone to arrive by 8:30. You can park in
the adjacent church lot. Morning lectures will take place in this space, which
we have reserved from 8:00 AM to 1:00 PM. Lecture topics will include
Wright/Griffin’s Lamp house in Madison; John Nolen’s 1911 plan of Madison
and its relationship with the design of Canberra; and the architecture of the local
Prairie School firm of Claude & Starck. Prof. James Weirick, our fabulous
keynote speaker at last year’s meeting in Mason City, is returning as one of the
session presenters.

LUNCH & TOURS: Box lunches will be delivered to the church at noon.
From 1:00 to 5:00 we will be visiting a selection of houses in and around Madison.
As of this newsletter, we have secured Louis Sullivan’s Bradley house,
Frank Lloyd Wright’s 1st Jacobs house, a wonderful shingle-style house near
the Sullivan building, and a selection of houses by Claude & Starck. Be assured
that, with the expert help of our local chair, architectural historian Gary
Tipler, there will be more to come by 20 June.

ACCOMMODATIONS: A block of rooms has been reserved at the Hilton
Madison Monona Terrace, 9 East Wilson Street, Madison, 53703, for the nights
of Friday and Saturday, 19 and 20 June. To get the Society’s group rate, you must
stay both nights. The cutoff date for this rate is 20 May. Reservations should be
made directly with the hotel at 877-510-7465. Use the booking code: WALTER
Or book online at:http://www.hilton.com/en/hi/groups/personalized/M/MSNMHHF-WALTER-20150619/index.jhtml

This hotel is centrally located, two blocks from the State Capitol building
and two blocks from the “Monona Terrace” center, a complex loosely based
on Wright’s original conceptions from the 1930s-1950s. The hotel is a tenminute
drive from Wright’s First Unitarian Meeting House, where the Griffin
meeting will begin on Saturday morning. There are many other hotels in the
downtown area, as well as several outstanding B&Bs along Lake Mendota.

The REGISTRATION FORM can be found here. Please fill it out,
indicating your choice of sandwich and beverage for lunch, and return it to
the Griffin Society’s headquarters. The cost will be for $15 for the Saturday
meeting and tours, $10 for the box lunch and, of course, registrants must also
have paid their annual dues of $25 to the Society..

The Griffin Society is pleased to announce the publication of its latest book on the work of the Griffins: the first monograph devoted to the internationally significant site that is Rock Crest/Rock Glen. This eighteen-acre site, meant to hold nineteen houses, marks the culmination of their American practice. Lauded by Peter Harrison, the prescient Australian architect, planner and historian credited with reviving interest in the Canberra plan in the 1950s, as “the nearest approach to a complete demonstration of Griffin’s talent for the design of a total domestic environment,” Rock Crest/Rock Glen has not been the subject of intense investigation since 1968, when Robert McCoy first examined the various personalities that came together to produce this masterpiece in The Prairie School Review. Drawing on unpublished photographs, documents and drawings from the Griffins’ office only recently made available at the Australian National Library in Canberra, and supplemented with a host of original sources from a variety of American archives, the four authors examine this amazing development from contrasting points of view. Here for the first time are in-depth analyses of the historical background and clients by Robert E. McCoy; of Griffin’s development leading to this remarkable design by Paul Kruty; of each of the buildings and projects by Paul E. Sprague; and the place of Rock Crest/Rock Glen in the Griffins’ complete careers by James Weirick. The book includes the texts of the two contemporary analyses of the project (one by Griffin himself) and a lengthy bibliography.

The Griffin Society is pleased to make available a limited number of new copies of the ground-breaking book, Two American Architects in India: Walter B. Griffin and Marion M. Griffin, 1935-1937, published in conjunction with the international conference, “The Griffins in Context: American, Australia, India,” held at the University of Illinois in October 1997. Written by Paul Kruty and Paul E. Sprague, the book is a comprehensive examination of the brief but productive period during which the Griffins worked in northern India. Long unavailable and difficult to find, the book is for sale through the Griffin Society for $25, which includes shipping and handling. (A few used copies are currently available on Amazon for up to $98.82 plus shipping.) Copies may be ordered by writing to the Walter Burley Griffin Society of America, 1152 Center Drive, St. Louis, MO, 63117.